


As I Walk Through the Valley

by bosspigeon



Series: A Dangerous Woman [1]
Category: Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Brief suicidal thoughts, Canon-Typical Violence, Courier Six - Freeform, Gen, Head trauma, Memory Loss, boob armor critical, yes her name is danger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-10
Updated: 2015-09-10
Packaged: 2018-04-20 02:09:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4769621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bosspigeon/pseuds/bosspigeon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bagged, dragged, shot in the head and dumped in a shallow grave by some guy in a checkered suit. No caps to her name, and only scraps of memory that hasn't been blown away. Introspection on the part of Courier Six on her way across the Mojave Wasteland to hunt down the bastard who shot her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As I Walk Through the Valley

_As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death_  
_I take a look at my life and realize there's nothin' left_

"Gangster's Paradise" - Coolio

* * *

 

Sometimes she wonders what she was like before the bullet to the brain. She's got lots of time to think, out here in the Wasteland, lots of time to herself. It's hard to think for too long, because then she starts to remember, but only fuzzy little half-memories, blotted out here and there by patches like splotches of ink on the page of a real interesting book. Frustrating. Exhausting.

But ain't much else she can do out here, when her grimy boots are kickin' up dust, leaving heavy footprints the wind will blow away near as soon as she makes 'em, erasing any trace she existed there. The Wasteland is big, the sky even bigger, smudged with dark clouds of smog and pierced here and there by crooked spires of old radio towers, of ugly hulking shadows of crumbling buildings, shouldering their way outta the red mountains like behemoths rising from the pit of hell.

Sometimes the shit that comes to mind when she's ambling alone seems like somethin' out of a story book, some bleak dustbowl tragedy about despair and the endless nothing or somethin' like that. Maybe she was one'a them writers that pecked out books nobody bought because they looked to fiction as an escape, not some looming reminder that life is shit and it's gonna keep bein' shit 'til they put you in a pine box.

That makes her think of her shallow grave, the one Victor showed her when she asked him where he found her. She remembers staring down into the hole, little less than knee deep, more of a divot, really. Pitted here and there like somebody was aiming to dig deeper but she wasn't feelin' like it. She remembers feeling like somethin' was crawling on her, cold dirt clingin' to her sweaty neck, stickin' to her cheeks, stinging her eyes every time she blinked her dust-caked eyelashes. Then, a bang, a feelin' like a bighorner hoof to the head, and then cold, dark nothin'.

She shakes it off, snorts into the tattered scarf wrapped 'round her face. She was a courier an' nothing more. Not even a good one, if where she ended up was any indication. She can imagine all she likes, but it don't change the fact that she was the bottom rung of the ladder, a runner for hire, a number with a job for a handful of dented caps.

And before that? Before that don't matter.

Still, she ponders, strings together half-thoughts about who she mighta been before a gunshot to the dome made her into the dusty, grunting, scrawny coyote she is now.

She ain't too caught up in thought not to hear a telltale skitter of sharp little feet on hard-packed dirt (them big 'ol ears God cursed her with are good for somethin' at least) and she draws her shotgun quick as ya please and unloads both barrels into the beady little eyes of a bark scorpion. Its innards splatter, painting the dirt sickly green, and its claws snap convulsively in its death throes. She keeps her guard up, even as she lops off the stinger and hacks into the carapace for the venom gland, dropping it into her mason jar full of bits of various critters stewing in a noxious soup of poisonous gunk.

Maybe she was a merc before she was a Courier. It'd explain why she knew her way around a rifle like she'd been born with a gun in hand. But then, so could any number of things. Hunter, bodyguard, raider, maybe.

She thinks on it for a second before casting it aside. She don't know a whole helluva lot about who she used to be, but she knows damn well she wouldn't be caught dead in them awful steel tit cups. Metal on skin chafes like the dickens and she ain't got much to stuff in a regular bra anyhow, much less molded steel titty plate.

Whoever she was before, it don't matter now. Least that's what she tells herself as she tromps across the Mojave, keeping her eyes peeled for trouble hiding in the dust devils kicked up by the lonely wind.

She probably don't wanna know anyhow, that's her mantra. It keeps her grounded, keeps her from puttin' the double barrel in her mouth and pullin' the trigger. She ain't the optimistic type by a long shot, but she tries to think of it as a fresh start. Better or worse, who she used to be is gone, and there ain't no use cryin' over what was lost.

She takes a deep breath, inhales hot muggy air trapped by her the rough cloth around her neck, straightens her aching spine and tips back her broad hat to check the position of the sun.

Then, she hunches her shoulders against the stinging wind and adjusts her grip on her shotgun.

And Danger marches on.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Basically just me figuring out my Courier's voice in the form of an introspective little rambling train of thought. It's the first thing I've managed to complete in a while, so I figured I'd post to get things going.


End file.
